This article studies the temporality of platform labor through the specific lens of Meituan, the leading food delivery platform in China featuring an algorithm-driven dispatch system. This paper widens the existing research on platform labor from the perspective of time and speed. The on-demand food delivery service cultivates consumers’ expectations of timely satisfaction, nonetheless, it builds upon the rush, strictness, and flexibility of digital labor’s temporality which is often called a “mission impossible at times”. With the rhetoric of ‘Flexible work hours,’ the platform acts as an intermediary in the contradictory costumer-rider temporal relationship and prioritizes the customer's position within the temporal orders, where ICTs such as real-time tracking systems play a key role in sense-making. As the article will show, Meituan’s ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) algorithm distributes the common interests of efficiency with the "invisible hand of value," in the quaternary relation between riders, customers, suppliers, and platform. While workers' time experience and negotiating ability are diminished, the platform gains the ultimate capacity to exploit platform labor systematically. The coordination of all platform algorithms normalizes class divisions and unequal power structures, interpreting the asymmetrical power between capital and labor in the platform economy.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.